A novel activation process was adopted to produce highly porous activated carbon from cyclic activated sludge in secondary precipitator in municipal wastewater treatment plant for dye removal from colored wastewater. The physical properties of activated carbon produced with the activation of 3 M KOH solution in the atmosphere of steam were investigated. Adsorption removal of a dye, Acid Brilliant Scarlet GR, from aqueous solution onto the sludge-based activated carbon was studied under varying conditions of adsorption time, initial concentration, carbon dosage and pH. Adsorption equilibrium was obtained in 15 min for the dye initial concentration of 300 mg/L. Initial pH of solution had an insignificant impact on the dye removal. Results indicated that 99.7% coloration and 99.6% total organic carbon (TOC) were removed after 15 min adsorption in the synthetic solution of Acid Brilliant Scarlet GR with initial concentration of 300 mg/L of the dye and 20 g/L activated carbon. The Langmuir and Freundlich equilibrium isotherm models fitted the adsorption data well with R-2 = 0.996 and 0.912, respectively. Accordingly, it is concluded that the procedure of developing activated carbon used in this study could be effective and practical for utilizing in dye wastewater treatment. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.